Wildfire Particulate Emissions and Respiratory Health under Climate Change Scenarios: Project overview and results

Inhalation of particulate matter from wildland fire smoke has been linked to a variety of acute human respiratory and cardiovascular health effects. In a project sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health Initiative we have linked physically-based models of wildland fire emissions and atmospheric transport to population health outcomes using data obtained through syndromic surveillance for the 2003 and 2007 San Diego County wildfires. The goal is to better understand how to approach forecasting and preparedness for air quality events caused by wildland fire and how climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of fire events. The aim is to better understand our capacity to link models of interacting physical environmental processes and the manifestation of model outputs on human health. Our presentation includes an overview of the project, a review of modeling methods used to connect smoke from wildland fires to respiratory health, and a discussion of the predicted fire and health outcomes under climate change scenarios. We have developed a statistical model based on a generalized additive modeling (GAM) approach, with the addition of environmental variables and lagged effects, to connect particulate matter concentrations from wildland fire to syndromic surveillance data on respiratory health collected from regional hospitals. The project included development of a model to forecast future fire occurrence based on regional climate model predictions. The statistical model was exercised to produce expected respiratory health impacts under future climate conditions for the San Diego County region.  In addition to developing a better understanding of the consequences of climate change on fire-induced respiratory illness, the project has provided support for San Diego County to improve their syndromic surveillance capacity and infrastructure through the addition of new hospitals.